Only Full Sibling of Prince Dead at 64

The one full family link to Prince is gone.

Tyka Nelson, who was also a singer, passed away recently.

She was 64 years old.

Gone Too Soon

Like Prince, Nelson hailed from Minneapolis.

While definitely under Prince’s shadow, she did manage to force her own path, releasing multiple albums from 1988 through 2011.

She had clearly become ill in recent months, but she had scheduled a retirement concert in June.

Unfortunately, she fell ill before the concert, and her retirement concert was held without Nelson in attendance.

Just prior to that show, she had stated, “I’m getting older. I really wasn’t a singer. I’m a writer. I just happen to be able to sing. I enjoy singing.”

Her last appearance prior to that scheduled concert was in 2018, when she stopped performing and focused more on the legacy of her brother.

She also leaned heavily on Prince in her own life after the passing of their father.

Nelson had fallen into the trap of many entertainers and stars… drug abuse.

She explained, “I had a long time kind of battling those things, and after my father passed, it got really bad.

“And so I called up big bruh, said, ‘Help!’ He said, ‘OK, when and where?’”

In a cruel twist of fate, Prince would wind up dead in 2016 at the age of 57 from an opioid overdose.

This did not surprise Nelson, who described the moment she found out, stating, “It wasn’t hard at all. It was a two-second phone call. ‘He’s gone.’

“I had been preparing for two years, so I knew that it was coming. He said it a couple of years ago. What he said was, ‘I’ve done everything that I’ve come to do.’ So I was crushed for about two years.”

From that time forward, she more or less devoted her life to securing Prince’s legacy, part of which was opening Paisley Park.

On that, she stated, “Opening Paisley Park is something that Prince always wanted to do and was actively working on.

“Only a few hundred people have had the rare opportunity to tour the estate during his lifetime.”

Rest in peace, young lady, and tell Prince we said hello.